Published in 1950, Fifth Chinese Daughter—the first autobiography by a Chinese American woman—was an instant hit with readers, and a success for its author Constance Wong, a ceramicist who was known socially as Connie and professionally as Jade Snow Wong.
The book secured Wong’s legacy in Asian American studies, and, as Ellen Wu observes in the Pacific Historical Review, scholars have come to treat it “as a primary source on experiences of second-generation Chinese Americans in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.”
Wu’s interest, though, lies elsewhere: the historical implications of the US Department of State’s support for Wong’s memoir, which Wu painstakingly documents through consular records, Wong’s papers and writings, and even a conversation with Wong before the author’s death in 2006.
During the Cold War, officials were keen to shore up international goodwill through “cultural diplomacy” such as exhibitions, athletics, and radio broadcasts. When approached, San Francisco-born Wong was eager to headline one such project.
Over four months in 1953, she gave speeches in forty-six Asian cities, promoting what she called “the truth concerning America as I have known it.”
The story that Wong took on tour upheld her achievements as proof of the United States’ successful liberal multiculturalism. For the State Department, this was a key rebuttal to the charge that racial discrimination in the United States undermined its legitimacy.
But Wong’s Chinese heritage served another purpose for American diplomats.
The Chinese civil war had ended with a Communist victory just a few years before, and Wu writes that “discriminatory treatment of Chinese by host societies, American authorities feared, could result in minority Overseas Chinese…
Read the full article here